Christmas in the Caribbean
by HeatherLayne
Summary: Chapter 4 up-Frustrated with her parents and tired of being “Little Miss Perfect” Hermione Granger takes off to a beautiful Caribbean island where she meets an odd yet alluring stranger who is rather fond of rum...
1. Departure

**Blurb**: Frustrated with her parents and tired of being "Little Miss Perfect" Hermione Granger takes off to a beautiful Carribean island where she meets an odd yet alluring stranger who is rather fond of rum…

**Author's Note:** I'm fully aware that this could never have happened because of the obvious time difference, but just go with it. The idea came to me after watching Pirates of the Carribean a few months back. I'm not sure exactly why, I just thought it would be fun. I had completely forgotten about it until just a few days ago, so I sat down and wrote it all out. (Please excuse the shifts in point of view and any other strange mistakes I've made. It was just for fun.) I'm going to try and post up new "chapters" (rather short) at least once a week.

**Chapter One**

"Hermione Jane Granger, you get back in this house right this instant!"

_Oh no, she's used my middle name_, Hermione thought sarcastically, rolling her eyes at her mother who yelled from the front doorway. She did not turn around, but kept marching down the sidewalk.

"I mean it, young lady, don't you take one more step!"

She was sick of this. Truly and utterly sick, so that she felt it in her stomach, behind her eyes, in the back of her throat. Hermione stopped, looked over her shoulder, and as she met her mother's eyes she took another big step, slamming her boot down on the sidewalk.

Her mother gasped, not able to believe her perfect daughter's direct disobedience.

"Hermione." Her father appeared in the doorway now as well. "Come back in and let's discuss this logically." He was the quieter one of her parents.

"NO!" she yelled back as she spun to face them both. She caught the flick of a curtain from the side of their house; it looked like her little sister was spying from her bedroom when she was supposed to be doing homework. "I've _tried_ to discuss it logically, but you just won't listen!" She stuffed her fists into the pockets of her wool coat and glared, feeling her fingers tighten around her wand. She knew she shouldn't use magic outside of school. She was mere months from graduating Hogwarts, and really really didn't want to risk getting in trouble right now.

But she also really really wanted to get far away from here. Somewhere calm, with no yelling mothers. Somewhere peaceful, with no maddeningly composed fathers. Somewhere with no spying little sisters, noisy arguments, university brochures, columns of numbers and piles of papers. And SNOW! Merlin's shorts, was she ever sick of snow! It had done nothing _but_ snow since she had come home for the Christmas holidays.

All of a sudden, she decided. She was going. She was getting out of here, and going some place warm to relax for a day or two. She didn't care if she got in trouble for using magic outside of school. She didn't care how angry her parents would be, or how worried, if she just disappeared.

And that's exactly what she did. Just disappeared…


	2. Arrival

**Chapter Two**

Captain Jack Sparrow had been half-drunk for nearly two days now, so it came as no great surprise when a brown haired young woman appeared on the beach in front of him, seemingly from nowhere. She was dressed rather oddly, as if for the cold of winter instead of the scorching hot rays of the Caribbean sun, but from what he could tell of her profile, she was fairly attractive. For a mirage. He watched as she turned slowly and took in the endless ocean, a perfect aquamarine jewel, like a favourite earring of his he had lost in a bar fight some years ago.

She seemed satisfied with the view, and sat down to remove her boots, stockings and overcoat. Jack noticed she was dressed in trousers of a material similar to the type ships' sails were made of, though it was blue. Odd. She also wore a grey sweater and her slightly frizzy hair was loose around her shoulders, like a common peasant girl's. What a strange mirage his mind had conjured up. He watched as she rolled the legs of her trousers up to her knees and waded into the sea. Her whole body seemed to relax as the small waves lapped and foamed against her nicely rounded calves, and she tilted her face back to the warmth of the sun.

After a few minutes, she began to walk up the slight incline of the beach. Then she spotted him, propped on his elbows, a bottle in one hand. "Oh." She stopped dead in her tracks. _The mirage speaks_, he thought. "I'm… I'm sorry, I, um, didn't know this, er, island was occupied." She took a few backwards steps toward her discarded clothes. "I just had a sort of general idea of where I wanted to go," she muttered, "and, um, I just… ended up here."

"Tha's all right, love," Jack slurred, making an effort to rise into a sitting position. He failed miserably. "Stay a while. I could do with some company on this deserted island. Well," he gestured gracefully to somewhere behind him, "usually deserted." She hovered uncertainly. "Come on, come on." He beckoned her closer with elegant fingers, rings glinting in the sunlight, the blue-black tattoos etched into his tanned arms stretching over taut muscles.

"I really… shouldn't," she protested, though somewhat weakly. She frowned and squinted. "Are you… a pirate?"

"I am indeed, lass," he replied, finally succeeding in pushing himself up off the sand. He stumbled toward her, the bottle still hanging loosely from one hand. "Are you a mirage?" he frowned. She shook her head no, and he beamed, displaying several gold teeth and a few missing ones. "Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service," he said with a clumsy bow. She said nothing, only cocked her head to one side. "Have ye heard of me?"

"No-o…" she said slowly.

"Ah." He fluttered his fingers in the air as if waving away a swarm of annoying gnats. "That's all right. Come siddown, have a drink wi' me." He fell abruptly onto his rear, but seemed not to notice. His attention was fixated on the bottle now, which he lifted to his chapped lips.

"I don't drink," she said softly, looking very uncomfortable indeed.

"Don't drink?" he sputtered through his mouthful of rum. After swallowing, he added, "We'll 'ave to fix that. Try a bit." He offered the bottle up to her, sloshing its meager contents around so the amber liquid was lit from within, small bubbles illuminated in an instant, gone the next.

"I'd rather not." She was backing toward her things more quickly now.

"Don' go, don' go," he pleaded quickly, hand outstretched. He must have sounded really desperate because she stopped. "I been stuck here two days already, just me and me lonesome. Won' you spend just a bit o' time with a poor ol' pirate, lass? Please?" He grinned charmingly, squinting his black-ringed eyes against the sun. The beads in his mangy hair jingled as he moved and one hand was still outstretched toward her. His sleeve was pulled up, revealing a "P" brand and a tattoo of a sparrow in front of the setting sun. His fingers trembled slightly, from the drink or from desperation even he did not know. "Please?" he whispered again.

The girl hesitated.


	3. Introductions

**Author's Notes**: Thank you so much for the reviews so far! I love reading them! In answer to one of the questions, no, Severus Snape will not be showing up in this story. (If you want your Snape fix, go read my other story, Dreams Can Come True.) I do, however, have in mind a sort of spoof/crossover short for him soon… Keep an eye out for it. Enjoy!

- -

Hermione was torn for a moment. She knew nothing about this "Captain Jack Sparrow" man, yet she felt strangely drawn to him. His dark eyes pulled her in, and his strong yet graceful hands beckoned to her even when they were still. If things got too weird, she could always apparate away again.

"All right," she said quietly, though she gathered her boots and coat and brought them further from the shore so they wouldn't get wet when the tide came in. She plopped down next to him, though not too near. He smelled strongly of alcohol, as well as sweat and seawater.

"Stay right here," he said, rolling onto his stomach and crawling a short distance to a scraggly bush. He swigged the remainder of his bottle down fast, reached under the bush and pulled out two more bottles, left the empty one there, and crawled back. "One for you," he said, handing a long-necked bottle to Hermione, "an' one for me." He pulled the cork from the top with his teeth, spat it into the sand at his side, and drank deep. "Go on, go on," he urged with a smile.

She hesitated. The only alcohol she had ever had was the traditional half-glass of wine at Christmas dinner, and a small amount of champagne every New Year's Eve. The wine was all right, but she hated champagne. Rum? Was that what this was? She asked him and he just laughed.

"Yes, lass, that there is rum. Nectar of the gods," he sighed, taking another swig.

_Why not?_ she thought, _I'm on vacation_, and tugged the cork out. She placed it carefully in her jeans pocket so she could replace it later, then took a small sip. It was very strong, somewhat bitter, and it tingled in her mouth. Heat spread down her throat to her chest and into her stomach when she swallowed and she tried not to grimace. She glanced over at Jack. He was drinking it like it was water. She took another sip, bigger this time. Not so bad.

"You like it?" he asked eagerly.

"It's… all right," she said politely, and took another small sip, then unbuttoned her sweater, exposing a white camisole. She hadn't expected it to be quite this hot.

"Got a name, missy?" he asked after a moment, tearing his eyes away from the pale, tantalizing flesh of her throat and chest. He never thought he'd see a woman again, yet here she was, as if the fates had intended it.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she blustered, putting her bottle down in the sand and sticking out her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"Lovely to meet you, Miss Granger," he grinned, taking her hand and kissing it rather wetly.

"Er, you can call me Hermione," she said, discreetly wiping the back of her hand on her jeans.

"You can call me anything you want, love," he whispered throatily, leaning closer.

"I think I'll call you Mr. Sparrow," she said, leaning away.

He shrugged. "Fine with me." He saw her shrug out of her sweater from the corner of his eye, but kept his gaze fixed out on the ocean.

"It's lovely here," she said softly. "So quiet."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Bit too quiet if you ask me."

"Why would you say that?"

"You'd say it too, if you'd been stuck 'ere for two days, no way to get off the island, nothing to do but sit and drink rum." He studied the bottle in his hand for a moment. "Not that that in itself is such a bad thing."

"You mean you're trapped here?" Hermione had never thought such a thing; she supposed the rest of his crew was somewhere on the island, searching for treasure or some such nonsense, their ship parked just around the corner.

"Yup." Another swallow of rum. "Watched Barbosa sail away with me ship. 'Ave ye heard of the _Black Pearl_?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, no." Brushing a bit of sand from the leg of her jeans, she asked, "How… do you think you'll get off the island?" She could apparate him anywhere he wanted to go, of course, but didn't want to spring that upon him right now. He was definitely a Muggle, and they didn't react well to the matter of apparition.

"Dunno. Thought I'd probably just drink meself to death." He flashed her a golden grin. "Not much else I can do, is there?"

"I suppose not," she said quietly.

"But now you're here t' keep me company!" The grin was still plastered on his sun-worn features, and Hermione realized the rum probably had a lot to do with that.

"For a while, at least." She sighed and sipped from her bottle.

"You think you'll be able to get offa here? How you figure? Just blink and there ye are, like the way ye got here?" He laughed at his own joke.

"Yes, actually." At his quizzical look, she decided she better steer him away from that topic. "Where did all the rum come from?"

"Ah!" His eyes lit up like a child about to spill a secret. "Follow me." He rose as she did and grabbed her arm to steady himself. She smelled lovely, and her skin was so pale and smooth…

"This way," he shouted, pointing inland with his bottle. She helped him stumble along for a few minutes until he spotted whatever it was he was looking for. He knocked on a palm tree and listened to the sound, then started with his back against it and began taking ridiculously big steps, counting under his breath. He then checked the position of the sun, turned slightly northeast, and counted a few more steps. When he jumped in the air, the sand sprang back beneath him like a trampoline. "Here!" he yelled, and settled his bottle in the sand. "Gimme a hand, will ye?"

Hermione set her bottle down too and went to stand near him. "With what?" She couldn't see anything, though he was on his knees digging in the sand. She was surprised to find herself admiring the view his shirt afforded where it gaped open at the front. His chest was tanned and dark, light curls of black hair covering the skin there.

"With… this!" He found a heavy iron ring and began to pull. A sort of trapdoor rose and Hermione positioned herself so she could lift it upward with her shoulder and hands. When it fell back, she looked into the cool darkness of a kind of cellar, lined with shelves full of bottles of rum.

"What is this?"

"Rum runners. They keep a cache here," he said shortly, then descended the simple wooden ladder and handed up a few more bottles. " 'S illegal," he said with a wink. "So we ought to stock up now. We 'ave a long night ahead of us."

Her arms full of bottles, Hermione followed a grinning Captain Jack Sparrow back to their place on the beach.

- -

**Author's Notes**: Yes, again, sorry. I think this will be done sometime this month. I have finals next week, but after that I should have a lot of time to write before I start my summer job. So now I have a goal: to finish by May 31. Hold me to it! Bother me for more chapters if I start slacking off! Thanks for reading!


	4. Firelight

**Chapter Four**

Jack had rummaged through his "affects" for a while before finding a small box with a piece of flint and a piece of steel in it. He started with a spark and some furry stuff he had pulled from a palm tree, fed it with twigs, and soon they had a wonderful bonfire on the beach. They watched the sun set in silence, though they kept sneaking glances at one another.

When it was fully dark and all the stars in the universe were proudly displaying themselves just for the purpose of being reflected in Hermione's eyes, he turned to her, still a bit slurring and clumsy. "Hermione," he said, drawing out each syllable. "Such a lovely name. Lovely name for a lovely girl."

She blushed, though it wasn't visible in the dim light of the fire. "Thank you, Mr. Sparrow."

"You should call me Jack." He settled back into the sand with his hands behind his head.

"I should?" She did the same, but bumped his elbow with her own as she lay down. Quickly she shifted a bit further away.

"You should." He turned to face her and couldn't keep his eyes off her rich brown hair fanned out around her on the sand, the rise and fall of her chest, the small strip of skin that showed between the top of her trousers and the bottom of her camisole.

Hermione shifted so her head lay on one arm and she faced him. "All right. Jack. Mm, Jack." She'd had more rum than she thought.

"There, isn' that nice?"

"Yes…" Their gazes locked and it was a long while before she broke it by sitting up abruptly. Ooh, that did bad things to her head.

"All righ' love?" he asked, sitting up more slowly.

"I'm fine, thank you," she said, raising a hand to her forehead. His hand rested on her bare shoulder, warm against the cool breeze that blew in off the sea. Almost without realizing it, she leaned toward him.

Jack didn't protest, only slipped his arm around to her opposite shoulder, his fingers drumming softly against her bare skin. She scooted closer and lay her head on his chest with a great sigh. "Whatsa matter, love?" he cooed, leaving his rum bottle in the sand to brush a strand of hair from her face.

She sighed again. "Oh… I'm just thinking that sooner or later I'll have to go back." Jack decided to ignore the fact that they were marooned without a ship and there _was_ no way to go back.

"And is that such a bad thing?" She smelled so good, like… like apples and some kind of little purple flower he couldn't remember the name of.

"Probably." She sat up then, realizing she had been in his arms. The thought sobered her, but only for a moment. "I left to get away from my parents."

"Ahh," Jack said wisely, bringing the bottle to his lips again. He really did have nice lips, Hermione noticed, even if they were rather chapped. "Been givin' you a spot of trouble, eh?"

"Yes, you could say that." She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, shivering slightly. Jack felt around behind him for his discarded coat and draped it around her small frame. "Thanks," she said with a weak smile. The tears in her eyes made them shine all the more beautifully.

"Wanna talk about it?" Jack took another swig.

_Why not?_ Hermione asked herself. "I… they want me to go to a… a different school than the one I've chosen." Somehow she thought saying "a Muggle school" would confuse him, so she simplified things.

"Ah." He nodded. _A woman going to school?_ he thought wondrously. There was nothing wrong with teaching little girls to read, but someone Hermione's age going off to a real school? Practically unheard of! Jack himself hadn't much use for letters. He could sign his name if necessary, could read any map set before him, and he knew how to read the names of over two dozen brands of ale, but that was his limit. He never thought it necessary to learn more.

"And the thing is, they just won't listen to reason!" Hermione took a gulp of rum. She was getting worked up again. Shouting made her head hurt, though, so she spoke a bit more softly. "I mean, I know wherever I go, I can get a scholarship, so it's not about the money. And they're bl-bloody dentists, it's not as if they can't afford it if I _didn't_ get a scholarship." She stumbled over the swear word, unused to the syllables on her lips.

Jack just nodded and sipped from his bottle. He had no idea what she was rambling on about, but it seemed like a good idea to at least appear to be listening.

"My mum's gone completely mad about it, but my dad's almost worse! He just sits there quietly, nodding and nodding… And then that _line_, that line I _hate_! 'You do what you want, Hermione,' but you know that's not really what he means. He has this look, you know, that look that parents have?" She was off now. "Did your parents ever give you that look?"

Jack nodded sagely. "Aye. That's what made me run away when I was a lad, was that look. Didn't want t' be a blacksmith like me dad."

"You ran away?" Hermione swigged her rum as her eyes filled with half-drunken tears. Her words slurred together ever so slightly. "That's terrible. That's so, so terrible." Gulp. "Terrible. You poor thing." She leaned closer to him, propping herself on one arm and tilting her head to one side. She was lost in his soft brown eyes. His warm, soft, deep brown eyes that were so… soft. And warm. And inviting. She wanted to kiss them, feel the lashes on her lips. But no. No, you weren't supposed to kiss strange men on their eyes. Hm. Where were you supposed to kiss them? Their lips! That was it! She tried to focus on his lips and succeeded after a moment. Mmm…

Jack's eyes widened. The girl had a look about her. He'd seen that look before, though not nearly as recently as he would've liked. She breathed a sigh and warm, rum-scented air washed over him. He set down his bottle and leaned toward her. "You all right, love?" he asked in a whisper.

She nodded and his face swam amongst the stars. She blinked slowly, once, twice, took a few small sips from her bottle. It was nearly empty. Her eyes wandered all over his body, his face. Blue-black tattoos peeking out from various places beneath his shirt, the brand on his arm marking him a pirate, his black-lined eyes, the beads in his hair glinting in the firelight. His beard looked so soft, the stretch of skin revealed by the V in his shirt looked so warm, his rag-wrapped hands looked so… so capable of doing so many things…

"Love?" he asked, softer still, his head canted to one side.

"Yes, darling?" she slurred.

"You're drunk."

"I know," Hermione sighed. "It feels weird." She pushed herself into a cross-legged position and held one arm out, index finger extended, then tried to touch her nose with the tip of her finger. She missed and hit her mouth. Trying again, she hit her cheekbone, then once more. She nearly put her eye out. "Guess I wouldn't pass the test."

"What test?"

"Doesn't matter," she whispered. "I'm not driving anywhere anyway." She stretched her legs out in front of her and raised her arms up over her head to stretch and yawn. She felt sleepy.

Jack couldn't tear his eyes away from her skin. _Gods,_ he thought, _I never knew a woman's navel could be so ruddy tantalizing_. He gulped and looked away. _Musn't take advantage, mustn't take advantage…_

Hermione let her head hang back, hair spilling over her shoulders, to gaze at the salt-sprinkled night sky. "Would you like to kiss me, Captain Sparrow?" she asked drowsily.

_Not taking advantage if she asks_, he thought as he settled his bottle in the sand. "Mmm, maybe." He examined his dirty, gnawed-on fingernails nonchalantly. "Would you like me to kiss you?"

"Yes, I think I would." She lost her balance, lost among the stars, and toppled onto her back in the sand. "Yes please."

Jack really admired a woman who knew what she wanted. "All right," he whispered. Slowly he lowered himself onto one elbow to lie alongside her. His other arm went around her, caressing the smooth skin of her stomach. She looked up at him, a pure, sleepy, curious look. "Hermione." He murmured her name before his lips fell upon hers. He was hesitant at first; though many would say otherwise, Jack Sparrow was, at heart, a gentleman. He kissed all along her mouth, from one corner across to the other. After he had pulled back for a moment, her lips parted and he returned to them, more strongly and with more enthusiasm than before. Her arms slid around him, moving the hem of his shirt out of the way so she could run her palms over his bare back. The tips of their tongues flickered back and forth and a low sound of pleasure came from Hermione's throat. She arched her back, pressing against him, and then…

And then…

Her eyes fluttered closed, her arms went slack, her mouth ceased to caress his.

Hermione Granger had passed out.


End file.
